Packers chat with Pete Dougherty

Dec. 5 transcript.

Probably not. Not sure you can take at face value anything these guys say about these things. Not saying he doesn't mean it, but how are we to know? Nick Saban was absolutely not leaving the Dolphins for Alabama.

by Pete Dougherty12/5/2018 6:43:42 PM

With the uncertainty of Clay Matthews coming back and Nick Perry having an off year, it may not be a bad idea for the Packers to use both first round picks on pass rushers next year? What are your thoughts and is this possible?

by Eric12/5/2018 6:43:52 PM

I doubt it will work out that way but it wouldn't be that much different than taking CBs with their first two picks this year.

by Pete Dougherty12/5/2018 6:44:28 PM

Do you predict a change in the strength and conditioning coach this year? Seems to me a lot of the injuries are from lack of game shape and flexibility.

by BabyQB12/5/2018 6:44:37 PM

A new coach very well might overhaul that staff, it's part of the coaching staff. I don't know what Gutekunst's thoughts are on that, it's obviously something they'd discuss in an interview. I thought the Packers were pretty healthy for most of the season. The last couple weeks have been tougher, but this is the NFL, almost every team goes through this. I remember seeing in camp and early in the season, for instance, the Eagles were losing guys left and right. If I remember right in one of their early games they were missing several of their top DBs.

by Pete Dougherty12/5/2018 6:46:37 PM

I think there is a strong chance Taylor, Bell, and Bulaga aren't a part of next years offensive line.

by Brandon12/5/2018 6:47:01 PM

Agreed on Bell and Bulaga. Bulaga has just been so beaten up the last few years, his body is giving out. Taylor hasn't played as well as he did the last two years, that's for sure. Maybe he's hurt and not saying, I'm not sure. He's scheduled to make $4M next year, so I'm sure he'll get a shot to bounce back.

by Pete Dougherty12/5/2018 6:51:07 PM

I can't think the last time a college coach, who has never coached in the NFL before, has had success. Can you?

by Tom in TN12/5/2018 6:51:26 PM

Jimmy Johnson immediately comes to mind, but that's about it. I'd have to think about it for a while to come up with others. If I were doing the hiring I'd be strongly inclined to go with someone who's coached in the NFL, for that very reason. Never say never, but I'd take a lot of convincing to hire a college guy who's never worked in the NFL.

by Pete Dougherty12/5/2018 6:53:44 PM

Hi Pete- What is your take on Reggie Gilbert? Started to show promise end of last year, strong training camp, then poof!

by Pete in Ktown12/5/2018 6:54:25 PM

Just not quite explosive enough to beat starting-caliber players very often. Has a great motor and certainly did well against backups in the preseason, but that appears to be his ceiling.

by Pete Dougherty12/5/2018 6:55:11 PM

Pete - AR has had a rough season. It seems like when players get hurt early in the season, they develop poor habits and mechanics. Clearly this has not been his best year, Yet he is still very talented. That makes this job desirable. If John HArbaugh is available, do you see it a good fit with the addition of an OC? Although Bevell had mixed results, do you think he could be effective with AR? I would prefer him over Van Pelt or even Philben. Thoughts? on a defensive guy with an OC with AR familiarity?

by Todd12/5/2018 6:56:22 PM

Harbaugh is an interesting name. I wonder how he and Rodgers would work together. By all appearances, both can be difficult to work with. Maybe it would be great but maybe it would bomb. Harbaugh just seems like such an odd/eccentric guy and has a little of the George Karl-Scott Skiles thing where he grates on people after two or three years. Judging by his work with the 49ers he's an excellent offensive mind though. He's one of the names that definitely is popping up as a possibility for the Packers.

After the chat, I saw that this was about John Harbaugh, not Jim. My apologies. I don't know a lot about John Harbaugh other than his record at Baltimore, which has been pretty good. Again, I'd lean pretty strongly to an offensive guy if I'm the Packers, and he's not that. He's experienced and has won a lot of games. But who would be his coordinators? That's so important. Would need to know that first.

by Pete Dougherty12/5/2018 6:59:39 PM

Gutey is gonna be really busy at season's end .. Scouting trips for college all star games and coaching interviews. Will he delegate more of his scouting duties while coaching search goes on ?

by Joseph12/5/2018 7:00:19 PM

The Senior Bowl scouting is done the week leading up to the game, which will be played Jan. 26. The Packers will have their new coach by then, so I don't think the search will interfere with his scouting all that much.

by Pete Dougherty12/5/2018 7:01:28 PM

Hey Pete. I'm thinking Winston Moss was salty that he was passed over for the interim head coach position and probably thought he was going to be let go at the end of the year anyway so just wanted to get fired. What do you think?

by AZ12/5/2018 7:02:03 PM

Wouldn't rule that out. He had to know that tweeting that out might cost him his job.

by Pete Dougherty12/5/2018 7:02:38 PM

Pete -- How do you respond to critics like me of McCarthy who says he should have been fired years ago?

by NYNeal12/5/2018 7:03:38 PM

There always are fans/observers who want the coach fired. I wouldn't be surprised if there are New England fans who think Belichick is slipping and should be canned. When Holmgren was here I got letters from people saying he should be fired, and he was an outstanding coach. Same thing on Wolf, who's now in the Hall of Fame. A lot of the chat questions today are from people who want to get rid of Rodgers. Maybe it will turn out they're right, but if Rodgers plays great again in the future, it's not like the people calling for his trade now will suffer for saying he should have been traded. It's easy to call for firings, we're all so prone to being prisoner of the moment. But none of us can see the future, I thought McCarthy was a good coach. I still think he has. Maybe he's lost some of his edge, that I don't know. He'd definitely run his course here. It would have been really hard in my mind to justify firing him years ago. Maybe after last season, if you subscribe to the theory that a coach shouldn't stay with a team for much more than a decade. But before then? Can't say I'm seeing that. You keep firing guys at the first sign of struggle, you end up being Cleveland.

by Pete Dougherty12/5/2018 7:11:07 PM

You say the Packers need a young TE. What about Tonyan? Is he not on the roster and is he not someone that they should give a chance to show what he can do?

by NYNeal12/5/2018 7:11:39 PM

Yeah, I have to say I think he has some promise. Don't know if he's a starter in the making or not, just haven't seen enough to know. But I think there's something to work with there. Have to think he'll get more playing time in the final month.

by Pete Dougherty12/5/2018 7:12:29 PM

Hi Pete, I really enjoy all of your stuff. It is very insightful. I have done a deep dive into the draft since TT took over in 2005 and can understand why we are in the position that we are in. Aaron has masked so many deficiencies over the years that the fans had blinders on to all of the missed draft picks, especially in rounds 1-3. We have passed on so many dynamic offensive players over the years. We have missed on the following top 3 round picks since 2005 and missing on guys such as Terrence Murphy, Aaron Rouse, Justin Harrell, Brian Brohm, Pat Lee, Derek Sherrod, Jerel Worthy, Datone Jones, Kyyri Thornton, Damarious Randall, Quinten Rollins, and Jason Spriggs just to name a few. Those misses overshadow the Kenny Clark's,BJ Raji's and Clay Matthews' of the past 13 years. Yes, we have hit on some 4th - 7th rounders, even found some All-Pro's in those rounds but missing on the so many in the top 3 rounds, where your draft capital really lies has made our roster very average with not much depth.

by TG12/5/2018 7:12:55 PM

I get your point but suggest this to give you some perspective: Go to drafthistory.com and look up several teams' drafts over the same period. It's an eye-opener. You don't realize how few players turn out to be good or great until you do that. Everybody misses on a lot of picks. That's the truth. Now you'll find a couple drafts where a team hits -- Seattle had a couple really good ones in 2010-11, around there. I thought Thompson's early drafts were really good, a couple standouts (Rodgers, Collins, Matthews) and a lot of good players (Jennings, Nelson, Sitton, Lang, Raji). Thompson's more recent drafts were thin, no getting around that. But check out other teams' drafts, or go back and look at the first rounds of the last decades. You might be stunned at all the missed picks.

by Pete Dougherty12/5/2018 7:17:21 PM

Rodgers is quite clever and intentional in his wording when the cameras are rolling. He praised getting to know MM at their respective houses and their success together, but I didn’t read where he came out and said MM was a good coach. Telling?

by Badseattle 12/5/2018 7:17:42 PM

Yes.

by Pete Dougherty12/5/2018 7:17:47 PM

Pete -- I say Packers fans who are dumping on Rodgers have short memories. They are inventing all kinds of scenarios as to why he didn't play up to his usual standards this year, when if they knew anything about football, the answers are all right there. They are McCarthy, lack of talent around him, his injuries and age, and the inexperience of guys around him. I hear everything from it's his personal life, it's his relationship with his family, it's the fact that he does commercials, and yada yada. I think that's all a bunch of baloney. Your thoughts?

by NYNeal12/5/2018 7:18:34 PM

He hasn't played well this year, and he played somewhat similarly (better than now, but not well) in the second half of '15 through the first half of '16 before he exploded in the second half of '16 and carried that team down the stretch. I think he was playing pretty well before he got hurt last year. So he's kind of been all over the map for the last three years relative to his immense talent. So it does make you wonder what's been going on over that time, are there environmental circumstances that played into it? I think back to Favre, he had his ups and downs too in his early-to-mid-30s. I'm very curious to see how things go with him playing for a new coach.

by Pete Dougherty12/5/2018 7:24:13 PM

If Bakhtiari is at all seriously hurt, why play him and risk possble further injury? And if you don't play him, how can you play Rogers?

by Stephen Packman12/5/2018 7:24:44 PM

If he's seriously hurt, yeah. But if not, these guys are professional players, and there are only so many games. They should play.

by Pete Dougherty12/5/2018 7:25:26 PM

Have to agree with you about the Packers' lifeless showing, not much there in the way of osprey d'corpse or soup du jour or whatever it was that you called it. McCarthy never seemed to show any fire, just the same old "disappointing loss" and "have to fix it" blah, blah. But I shudder at the idea of Josh McDaniels getting the job, just do not trust him after what he pulled in Indy. But there doesn't seem to be a lot out there to choose from. McVay was hired young, but he had play-calling experience which most of the other prepubescent candidates do not have. Maybe McDaniels could bring the fire as he seems pretty good at burning bridges. What's your take on J McD?

by Bill Klein12/5/2018 7:26:15 PM

McDaniel deserves a good hard look because of his success in NE -- they've been a top-three scoring offense in like five of the last six years, something like that. I realize they have the greatest QB of all time, but that's still really good. But you might be right, the red flags might be too much. The question I have is did he have a good reason for pulling out of Indy? They'd need to investigate that fully. Also, why did he fail in Denver? He was really young, was that it? Or are there other issues with him? Agreed that at least on the surface this looks like a tough year to be hiring a coach. But you never know how these guys are going to pan out as head coaches. A lot of times the big-name assistants end up failing. You just don't know, same as with drafts.

by Pete Dougherty12/5/2018 7:30:26 PM

I think Mark Murphy should be next in line for firing if we miss the playoffs next year. He waited too long to get rid of Ted and his new structure seems odd at every angle. It would appear like he wants to be the man much like Jerry Jones was. If he wants that he better fix this in a hurry.

by Old Packer Fan12/5/2018 7:31:45 PM

Murphy is very much putting himself on the line by making this hire and operating as the head of football.

by Pete Dougherty12/5/2018 7:32:37 PM

I do not like the idea of Murphy relying on a consulting firm for hiring. HE should know what to do and how to go about it. HE should know who may or may not be available. I have NO faith in him. Allow Gute to do this. No wonder Eliot left - he could see the handwriting on the wall.

by Larry12/5/2018 7:32:47 PM

I can't say I'm a fan of it either. This is one of the things a GM should do, as Wolf said in Tom Silverstein's story, he should always have a list of potential coaches ready, and he has the contacts and the daily work in the league to keep tabs on those things.

by Pete Dougherty12/5/2018 7:34:14 PM

The Saints scored 5 starters in their ‘17 draft to turn it around. How many do you think the Pack needs to score next year?

by Badseattle 12/5/2018 7:34:21 PM

OK, this is going to have to do it, this has been really fun and interesting, but we've gone a long time and other duties to get to. We'll still have plenty to talk about next week, same time and place, so if I didn't get to your question today, try again then. As for the Packers' '19 draft, more than the number of starters is the quality of a couple players. Yeah, it helps the Saints that Ramczyk is a starting RT immediately and that safety is a decent player and starter too, but the big thing was getting real playmakers at CB (Lattimore) and RB (Kamara). Two players of that quality, especially if one is a pass rusher, would make a huge difference for the Packers. And with that, we'll call it a chat. Thanks again everyone, very interesting times around the Packers these days. We'll have plenty to discuss next week. Until then, take care.